Foundation of Socialism

Construction of the Foundation of Socialism

After the Korean War, the Korean people were confronted with difficult tasks to rehabilitate the ruined national economy in no time and stabilize the people's living in a short period while pushing ahead with the socialist revolution.

Damages caused by the war were enormous. The US troops dropped average 18 bombs per sq.km. reducing cities and rural areas to ashes. All sectors of the national economy, irrespective of factories, rural economy and rail transport and facilities of education, culture and public health were damaged. People were completely deprived of houses and living tools, and food and clothes were in short supply. Indeed, the country's situation was in a harsh condition beyond description and a number of complex issues were raised.

The Party viewed heavy industry as a centerpiece to solution of all issues arising in postwar reconstruction and advanced a basic line of economic construction on developing light industry and agriculture simultaneously while giving priority to the heavy industry. In terms of developing industries, especially heavy industry, the Party made sure those sectors urgently needed for the national economy and the people's livelihood and able to produce quick economic results should be rehabilitated on a priority basis. In the rural economy an emphasis was put on the agricultural production in order to solve the food problem at an early date while introducing socialist cooperation of private farming.

Under the above line and policy a 3-year plan (1954-1956) of post-war reconstruction of the national economy was mapped out and the whole Party and the entire people turned out to implement it. Under the wise guidance of the Party, the Korean people tightened their belt and displayed the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance so as to tide over difficulties and fulfill the 3-year plan ahead of schedule.

In the wake of the fulfilled 3-year plan, the Korean people embarked on the 5-year plan from Juche 46 (1957). The 5-year plan was intended to finish the building of the foundation of socialism.

The Party put forward a task to wind up the agricultural co-operativization and socialist transformation of private trade and manufacture. The key task of the 5-year plan was to lay the foundation for socialist industrialization and to basically solve the problems of food, clothing and housing.

In the period towards implementing the 5-year plan, the situation at home and abroad was very complicated, which caused new difficulties and ordeals in the way ahead of the Korean people.
At that time President Kim Il Sung roused the entire people to a heroic struggle to overcome hardship and trials at the plenary meeting of the Party's Central Committee held in December, Juche 45 (1956).
It is how upswing in socialist construction and Chollima Movement came into being.

The Korean people continued to pursue upsurge in socialist construction and Chollima Movement further and implemented the enormous 5-year plan ahead of schedule. Agricultural cooperativization and socialist transformation of private trade and manufacture came to a successful end in August Juche 47 (1958). The plan was fulfilled in two and a half years in terms of total industrial output value and fulfilled or over fulfilled in four years in terms of production indices.

As a result, DPR Korea turned into a socialist industrial and agricultural state with firm foundations of independent national economy. In urban and rural areas socialist production relations established an undivided sway, bases of heavy industry centered on machine-building industry and light industry were built up, and the rural economy acquired solid production foundations.

Accordingly, the historic task of the building of the foundations of socialism in the northern half of the Republic was successfully undertaken.

Comprehensive Socialist Construction

President Kim Il Sung reviewed successes gained in the socialist revolution and socialist construction and put forward a gigantic program of the first 7-year plan in the Fourth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea held from September 11 to 18, Juche 50 (1961).

The main task of the 7-year plan was to carry out a comprehensive technological reconstruction and the cultural revolution and to make radical improvements in the people's living conditions by relying on the triumphant socialist system.

He convened various important meetings at the Party and State levels to successfully implement the 7-year plan to set forth wise policies and led the efforts to a victory to implement them.
In particular, he personally organized and guided efforts to hit 6 major targets of grain, textile, fishery, housing, steel and coal, thus making a crucial turning point in fulfilling the 7-year plan.

When grave difficulties were created in the fulfillment of the 7-year national economic plan due to the attempt of the US and its stooges to provoke a new war, President Kim Il Sung put forward a revolutionary line to carry on economic construction and national defense up building in parallel. And he, at the same time, took a series of revolutionary steps to strengthen the national defense while reorganizing the overall economic construction work. Based on that, he took active steps of postponing for another 3 years in the fulfillment of the 7-year plan.

The WPK took steps that new miracles and innovations were performed in all sectors of national economy by affecting a new revolutionary upsurge and conducting a vigorous struggle for simultaneous building up of economic construction and national defense.

Under the wise leadership of President Kim Il Sung the tasks of 7-year plan were fulfilled with good credit. Thanks to the successful conclusion of the socialist industrialization in the 7-year plan, the country has become a socialist industrial state. This has made it possible for the DPR Korea to be in a set of modern independent industrial system, comprehensively developed with strong material bases and equipped with new technologies.

In 1970s the total industrial output has increased to 11.6 times as against in 1956, among them the means of production 13.3 times and consumption materials 9.3 times. This shows a speedy growth of the industrial production at an annual average rate of 19.1 percent in the whole period of industrialization between 1957 and 1970.

The heavy industrial sectors produced 16 500 million kWh of electricity, 27.5 million tons of coal, 2.2 million tons of steel, 1.5 million tons of chemical fertilizers, 4 million tons of cement, and light industry sectors produced 400 million meters of cloth.

In every sphere of the national economy, tasks of full-scale technical revolution was successfully carried out relying on its own powerful heavy industry bases which resulted in radical improvements in technical equipment and wide introduction of electrification and automation. In addition, in the rural economy, irrigation system had been completed, rural electrification fully introduced and a remarkable progress was made in mechanization and chemicalization.

Formidable achievements were made in carrying out the cultural revolution with the result that a 9-year compulsory technical education was enforced while literature and art flourished.

Struggle for a Complete Victory of Socialism

The Korean people faced a task of further consolidating and developing the socialist system and hastening the complete victory of socialism on the basis of successes gained in the 1960s. President Kim Il Sung charted out tasks to ,speed up three revolutions of ideology, technology and culture and hasten a complete victory of socialism in the Fifth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in November Juche 59 (1970).

In the proposed grandiose program of the 6-year plan, he put forward three major tasks of the technical revolution designed to considerably narrow down the gaps between heavy and light labour and agricultural and industrial work and to free women from the heavy burden of housekeeping by unfolding an extensive technical innovation movement in all fields of the national economy and wisely guided the efforts to carry out them.

The workers dynamically launched a mass technical innovation movement in such a way to produce 30 000 machine tools in a little over a year and put production processes on an automatic basis in Hwanghae Iron and Steel Complex. They even built up large-scale and modern Kumsong Tractor Plant to boost the output capacity of tractors. In the course of the three technical revolutions in lively progress, a great deal of harsh and heavy labor was abolished and the 6-year plan was successfully fulfilled.

The Socialist Constitution of the DPRK was adopted in the first session of the Fifth Supreme People's Assembly held in December Juche 61 (1972) and Comrade Kim Il Sung was elected to the highest office as the President of the DPRK.

President Kim Il Sung advanced a policy on dynamically launching the Three-Revolution Team Movement in order to push ahead with the three revolutions of ideology, technology and culture and took measures to dispatch three revolution teams to major factories, enterprises and cooperative farms. As the Three Revolution Team Movement progressed in full swing, the three revolutions gained further development. In such a historic period, the 8th Plenary Meeting of the Fifth Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea was held in February, Juche 63 (1974). In the meeting Comrade Kim Jong Il was elected as a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the WPK and the sole successor to President Kim Il Sung.

As the three revolutions moved forward successfully, the Three-Revolution Red Flag Movement dynamically progressed from Juche 64 (1975) under the revolutionary slogan of "Ideology, technology and culture as required: by Juche" advanced by General Kim Jong Il.
The movement was an all-people campaign designed to speed up the socialist construction by giving a further spur to the revolutions of ideology, technology and culture. As the Three Revolution Team Movement and the Three Revolution Red Flag Movement progressed full blast, three revolutions gathered in strength which resulted in remarkable successes in the Three Technical Revolution.

Under the wise leadership of President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il, the Korean people fulfilled the 6-year national economic plan in one year and four months ahead of schedule.

Modeling the Whole Society on the Juche Idea

Towards the 1980s, the Korean revolution entered a new turning point. A great change occurred in the struggle for a
complete victory of socialism as the three revolutions of ideology, technology and culture gathered steam under the slogan of modeling the whole society on the Juche idea.

In an environment of a new, historic turning point, the Sixth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea was held from October 10 to 14, Juche 69 (1980).
President Kim Il Sung defined modeling the whole society on the Juche idea as a general task of the Korean revolution and set
forth 10 long-term goals of the socialist economic construction to be hit in the 1980s alongside the main task of the socialist construction.

In order to successfully fulfill the task of the socialist economic construction, Comrade Kim Jong Il put forward a revolutionary policy on creating a new speed of the 1980s and wisely guided the struggle to implement it.

Accordingly, dynamic efforts had been made to revolutionize, working-classize and intellectualize all the members of the society and to realize the Juche-orientation, modernization and scientification of the national economy.

The successful fulfillment of the second 7-year plan for the national economic development in Juche 73 (1984) is attributable
to the sagacious guidance of President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il and devotion of the Korean people. In the period from Juche 67 (1978) to Juche 73 (1984), the total industrial output increased to 2.2 times and among it, the means of production 2.2 times and consumption materials 2.1 times.

Through the endeavors to put the national economy on a Juche-oriented, modern and scientific basis the industry came to
robustly rely on its own resources and the internal structures of its sectors were completed, thereby further increasing the independence and Juche character.

Based on the proud successes made in the fulfillment of the second 7-year plan, the Party and the Republic government set
up Juche 74 (1985) and Juche 75 (1986) as a period of adjustment and made sure to produce large-size equipment with own efforts which were of great significance in developing priorities of the national economy of coal, electricity, railtransport and metallurgical industry and carrying out the technical revolution.

It is worthy of mention that the Korean people built the West Sea Barrage across the 8 km-long open sea in Juche 75 (1986). In addition, great successes were made in the areas of biology and thermal engineering to suit the global mainstream of the development of modern science and technology and practical requirements of the socialist construction.

Subsequent to the successful fulfillment of the second 7-year plan and tasks of the two-year-long adjustment period, a conference calling for general mobilization was convened to fulfill the third 7-year plan ahead of schedule, which called on the entire people to launch a 200-day battle.

In the progress of the all-people construction, monumental creations sprang up in Pyongyang and the rest of the country and construction of power, metallic and chemical centres of crucial significance in implementing the third 7-year plan were accelerated. 240 km-long railway tracks in the northern part of the country were laid and great successes were achieved in large-scale building of major objects.

In positive response to the Party's call on launching another 200-day battle, the Korean people successfully built 500 objects contributable to raising the level of Juche-orientation, modernization and scientification of the national economy.

The third 7-year plan saw a jump of 1.5 times in an industrial output and irrigation, mechanization and chemicalization underwent a radical change in the rural economy.

In a historic environment of entering a new turning point to fulfill the third 7-year plan and to inherit and accomplish the socialist cause, the Korean people significantly celebrated the 80th birthday of President Kim Il Sung as a greatest national holiday as well as a big political event of mankind of the world.